


Breakthrough or Bust

by thesemovingparts



Series: Supercut [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: (with some justified complaints), ...perhaps, Anxiety, BAMF May Parker, Canon-Typical Violence, College Student Peter Parker, Comic Book Science, F/M, Filmmaker MJ, Gen, Iron Man 3 Rewrite, Pepper Potts is Cool as Hell, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but perhaps some answers soon?, canon nudged to the left, we're playing the long game with supercut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-24 13:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30072615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesemovingparts/pseuds/thesemovingparts
Summary: “You know, even the kid thinks it’s lame?” Tony poked the bear, leaning back in his chair and cocking his head to the side in a way that was both challenging and relaxed and made Rhodey shoot him that very specific look of his.“I thought you hadn’t talked to the kid recently,” he pushed back. “Twenty minutes ago you’re telling me you haven’t talked to the kid recently-- you can’t use the youth vote if you aren’t in contact with the youth.”“Alright, so I’m dodging his calls--”“He says that he’s the one dodging your calls,” Rhodey cut him off with a knowing smirk.“So maybe we’re dodging each other’s calls,” Tony effortlessly pivoted. “Doesn’t matter, why’s it matter so much?”*OR: It’s Iron Man 3, except 21-year-old Peter Parker has a bone to pick with some people. Himself included.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Supercut [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110125
Comments: 49
Kudos: 146





	1. Breakdown or Bust

**Author's Note:**

> so... i'm back? 
> 
> I say this at the beginning of each one of these guys, but for those of you that are new here: This fic is the third part of an MCU reimagining with nosy, genius college student Peter Parker, which you can find [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2110125)! (Reading the first 2 is probably not NecessaryTM, but there are some set-ups in there, some character relationships, and some hints at future happenings that you'll be missing if you don't)
> 
> I also always say this, and I'm gonna stop justifying the things I do for fun at some point, but! This series is very much a self-indulgent and fun thing I do to get away from the more serious things I write, so there are gonna be imperfections and we're just gonna roll with it thank you for understanding!
> 
> Thank you all so much for stopping by and hope you enjoy <3
> 
> love,  
> prem

“A famous man once said: We create our own demons. Now, who said that? What does that even mean? Doesn’t matter. I said it because he said it, and he was famous, so now it’s been said by two well-known guys and-- Uh, well-- Jesus. I’m gonna start again. Can I start again?”

Michelle levelled him with a look from beside her camera, notebook in her lap and zoom recorder on the table next to her.

“Yeah, sure, Tony,” she said. “I mean, you don’t gotta try and be philosophical though. You know that right?”

“I’m not trying to be philosophical,” he frowned at her, at the red light above the lens, back again. “This is just how I talk.”

“Sure,” she deadpanned. “I just mean, this is, like, only a small part of the story I’m telling so you don’t have to-- strain yourself.”

“I’m ignoring you,” he pointed at her. “And I’m starting again.”

“Awesome,” she smirked at him. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Let’s track this thing from the beginning--”

“Don’t look into the camera,” Michelle cut him off and Tony huffed. He understood a bit better with each piece of direction from this woman how she was able to put up with dating Peter Parker.

She was tenacious to say the least.

“What?” Tony asked her with a sigh.

“You’re looking into the lens,” she motioned at the camera, at the still glowing red light. “It’s a documentary though, so you should look at me-- the person interviewing you.”

“I know that,” he said defensively. “I’ve seen documentaries.”

“Do you want me to ask the question again?”

Tony uncrossed his legs, crossed them again in the other direction, put his hands in his lap, and put his hands back on the arm rests of the chair in which he was sitting.

“Yeah, okay,” he finally said once he was semi-comfortable. He had never been nervous in front of cameras, had never felt so self-conscious being interviewed before, and it wasn’t Michelle’s presence that was doing this to him, he knew. It was everything else that had changed. It was him.

“Ready?”

Deep breath. Put on the Tony Stark charm.

“Hit me with it.”

“Awesome,” Michelle adjusted in her seat and glanced down at her notes. “So, tell me about the first time you met Aldrich Killian.”

Tony let out a heavy breath. “Diving right in there,” he pointed out, as though he wasn’t aware that this was coming, as though Michelle hadn’t graciously sat down with him the week prior to talk about everything she wanted to discuss, to get his permission and to prepare him for it ahead of time.

“You wanna start somewhere else?”

“No, no,” he brushed her off. “New Year’s Eve. 1999. That’s the first time I met Aldrich Killian, first time I heard the word _Extremis_ too… I fucked up pretty bad.”

Michelle quirked an eyebrow.

“We create our own demons?” she prompted.

“We create our own demons,” he nodded. “And sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing it.”

**Six**

**Months**

**Earlier**

The December chill was freezing for Peter even underneath the Spider-Man suit, making it stick uncomfortably to clammy, numbing skin and making him have to (theoretically) take more breaks to go inside somewhere heated during his daily stint as a construction worker.

He kept meaning to stop by the Tower so he could add some sort of heating system to the internal workings of his suit, but it had only been a handful of months since the city had fallen to ruin and there was so much that still needed doing. So many people who still needed help.

Who was he to stop when he had the ability to offer such a thing?

(Also, going to the Tower meant having to see Tony which was-- a thing all its own.)

“Alright!” Peter whooped as he got what appeared to be the final major piece of rubble out of the middle of Mister Delmar’s shop. “Now we’re cooking with gas!”

He was sweating and he was freezing. He was sweating so much that it was dripping into his eyes underneath the mask and his breath was coming heavier and he was shivering despite the fact that he could usually lift three times the amount he had today without, for lack of a better phrase, breaking a sweat.

“Okay,” he talked to the group of volunteers that were helping out today. “We gotta sweep up a little bit in here, and then we’ll be able to get the new window panel in, how’s that sound to everybody?”

A murmur of agreement followed as the small group of people began handing around brooms and trash bags to gather anything remaining that needed to be tossed, all of them bundled up tight as Peter, with his bulky coat pulled on over his suit, and his hands stuffed in his pockets to try and get warm.

“Spider-Man!”

Peter turned to see Delmar himself jogging across the street towards him and waved in response, bouncing on the balls of his feet a little to keep moving.

“Hey, Mister Delmar!” he said. “We’re almost ready to put that new window in!”

“I can see,” Delmar grinned at him. “I got you this-- to thank you for all the help,” he held out a styrofoam cup of coffee, steaming through the little hole in the lid and Peter almost burst into tears with gratitude.

“Thank you so much, Sir,” he gushed, because although he didn’t usually accept gifts from civilians, he was really pushing his spider genes to the limit with how much time he’d been spending relatively inactive in the cold like this lately, and probably should have been doing _something_ to combat his insides turning to icicles.

“It’s the least I can do,” Delmar brushed him off. “The least any of us can do, with all you’ve been doing for the city. Do you ever sleep?”

It was a joke, but there was a hint of genuine human concern underlying it that made Peter take an extra long sip of his coffee.

“I’m happy to help,” he said instead. “Especially since this means we’ll be getting back the best sandwiches in Queens.”

“You know it,” Delmar patted him on the shoulder. “Now, go take a break, Spidey. You’ve earned it!”

“Sure thing!” Peter waved to him as he walked away, staying put for the moment so he could finish downing the miraculous, warm coffee in his hands before tossing it in a nearby trashcan and swinging away.

The thing was, Peter didn’t want to take a break. How could he? His city was hurting, no matter how much of a brave face they were putting on for the rest of the world, they were _hurting_ well and truly, and there simply wasn’t enough hands-on power to go around in the rebuild.

Spider-Man couldn’t just take a break because he was cold or a little worn out, not when he had the power to speed up the process, to help make it easier on these innocent people who in no way brought this fate down upon themselves.

The local economy was plummeting, and anyone who relied on funds from tourism was really struggling with the way the whole of the world seemed afraid to step foot over city lines, and so Peter didn’t take breaks.

With classes and his new internship eating into his Spider-Man hours, he didn’t have time for it, not until the mess that he had been there for, the mess that he’d help create, was completely and totally fixed.

Peter dropped to the ground in front of another storefront on the mend.

He got back to work.

***

Tony had a lot of really good ideas all of the time.

It was part of his charm and part of his genius, the having of really good ideas. But in a world post-alien invasion, he was finding that his ideas were somehow even better.

Of course, Tony had taken the Iron Man suit out into real-life combat scenarios before, and the Chitauri invasion was far from his first rodeo, but it _had_ opened up a whole new world of threats that Tony had previously been unprepared for.

Aliens and gods and big nuclear missiles that needed to be disposed of in massive, unending, wormholes to the dark, dark, dark, dark--

The point was, he was having some phenomenally good ideas as to how to improve his suit, and he had spent the months since his involuntary trip to space working to _implement_ such ideas.

“Sir, may I suggest we run diagnostics one last time before we test this?”

“You can suggest it alright, Jay,” Tony replied flatly, injecting another receptor into his arm-- and another, and one more.

The new lab in the Tower was well underway, not fully stocked yet, but good enough to make this little experiment doable. More than doable, in fact, since he was the one doing it.

Peter had even left a little post-it on the door, scrawling out _Stark Industries R &D_ in his messy handwriting to make the place official the last time he’d stopped by. Was that the last time he’d stopped by? How long had it been?

He should check in on the kid, make sure he wasn’t still working himself too hard out there in the cold. He had a tendency to overdo it, after all.

“Micro-repeater implanting sequence complete,” Tony said, shaking out the aching arm in which he had just finished his last series of injections.

“As you wish, Sir,” Jarvis said. “I’ve also prepared a safety briefing for you to entirely ignore.”

“And I will do so promptly,” Tony replied glibly. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Sir, may I remind you that you’ve been awake for nearly seventy-two hours?”

Tony pushed himself out of his chair and began his trek across the lab, all manic energy and misplaced to boot.

He stood on the platform beside his row of suits (he’d been working up a storm-- he had so many good ideas, after all) and spread his arms.

“Mark forty-two,” he said aloud to the camera that was running. “Autonomous prehensile propulsion suit test… Initialize sequence.”

***

Test number one did not, to put it simply, go according to plan.

Tony knew that just meant that he had to get ready for test number two.

(Seventy-two hours was an awful long time to spend awake.)

***

“Hey, I think I’m gonna go ahead and pack up for the day,” Michelle said, pulling the lens cap out of her back pocket and snapping it onto her camera. “Unless you foresee anything else major happening tonight?”

“No,” Pepper smiled at her. “Go home, get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Thanks, Miss Potts,” Michelle smiled back, grabbing her camera bag out of the corner of Pepper’s office where she generally left it during days at SI and beginning the process of breaking down her equipment and packing it up.

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Pepper?” she laughed in response, sitting down heavily in the chair behind her desk and slipping her feet out of her shoes.

Michelle really didn’t envy the heels that she watched Pepper wear every day-- the woman had been particularly uncomfortable in them lately, presumably with all the extra work for the rebuild she was doing.

“And how many times do I have to tell you that I wanna remain professional so long as I’m making a documentary about you?” Michelle fired back teasingly over her shoulder.

“Okay,” Pepper made a face. “Not a documentary about me, remember? You told me point-blank the documentary isn’t about me.”

“Yeah, but you’re, like,” Michelle rolled her eyes and slid her lens into the bag, followed by the camera body. “A major part of the documentary, nonetheless. The story of rebuilding New York after the Chitauri invasion would be incomplete without the work you’re doing, Pepper.”

Pepper’s face lit up and she pointed at Michelle, even as she slouched a little bit in her chair.

“There it is!” she gloated, and although Michelle pretended to ignore her, she still grinned as she slipped on her hat and coat.

“I’m ignoring you,” Michelle laughed, and then as her phone began to ring, “Oh, look at that--”

“Saved by the bell, huh?” Pepper smirked as she reorganized the stack of files on her desk into things that she had completed that day and things that still needed doing.

Michelle just stuck her phone between her shoulder and her ear as she began zipping up all her equipment.

“Hey, I’m just about to head out,” she said into the receiver. “You need me to pick anything up on the way to your place?”

_“My place?”_ Peter sounded confused on the other end of the line, also suspiciously far away and outdoors which Michelle knew as the very specific tonality of his cell phone pressed up against his mask.

“You forgot,” Michelle sighed, not maliciously so much as concerned.

_“Oh-- Ohh,”_ realization filled his voice. _“Shit, Em, I’m so sorry. I totally lost track of time. I’ve been--”_

“Out in the cold playing contractor for longer than is healthy for you physiology?” she finished for him, feeling Pepper’s eyes on her as she tugged a bit harder at the last zipper, stuck halfway and refusing to budge.

Peter was suspiciously quiet at that and Michelle rolled her eyes.

“I’m not mad at you,” she said. “But you have to go home and eat at some point because you can’t live off of coffee, so I’ll meet you there, okay?”

He let out a heavy breath. _“Yeah-- Yeah, okay. I can do that.”_

“You sure can,” she smiled softly, hating the weight that had been following him for months, hating that getting him to simply take care of himself was a fucking battle lately, hating that she couldn’t fix this thing. “See you in a few.”

_“See you soon.”_

Michelle slid her phone into her coat pocket as she hung up and strapped her camera bag and tripod case to her body for the trip to Peter’s apartment.

“Sorry about that,” she said to Pepper as she made her way to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait a second, actually,” Pepper looked up from her work and leaned forward on her elbows. “I just-- Well, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Michelle lifted an eyebrow. “About the Foundation?”

“About you,” Pepper amended. “If that’s okay?”

“I-- Sure,” Michelle replied, surprise evident in the tilt of her shoulders.

“It’s been a tough few months,” Pepper breathed. “Since everything.”

“Yeah,” Michelle agreed simply.

“For both you and Peter?”

Michelle breathed in sharply through her nose, saw the understanding in Pepper’s face, and nodded. Because if anyone understood what it was like to watch the person you loved throw themselves at trouble with very little care for their own safety-- Well, it was Pepper Potts.

“Stupid question right? It’s been tough for everyone,” Pepper laughed a self deprecating sort of laugh. “But I feel like we’ve gotten pretty close recently, right?”

Michelle softened. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s-- I mean, I’m really grateful to have been able to shadow you like this.”

“And it’s been a joy to have you,” Pepper smiled at her gently. “Which is why I just wanted to make sure you knew-- You can talk to me, okay? Not just about stuff for your project.”

“Oh?”

“Michelle, you’re an amazing young woman, and I know you can take care of yourself,” Pepper continued. “But I also know what it’s like to be-- who we are, and not have anyone you can talk to about it. Because no one understands. So…”

She trailed off with something of a shrug, an offer that hung in the room like steam in the air, warm to the touch but intangible.

When she had figured out that Peter was Spider-Man back in high school, Michelle had assumed it would mean a bit more adventure in her life, a bit more danger perhaps and a lot more lying. What she hadn’t considered was that it would earn her something of a friendship, an offer of mutual support from the literal CEO of Stark Industries.

So she floundered.

“I-- Pepper, you don’t have to--”

“I want to,” Pepper shrugged. “It’s not like I have anyone else that gets it either, after all.”

Michelle was floored, and a little bit overwhelmed, but mostly she felt a pang of gratitude. She didn’t think that she would be taking Pepper up on her offer anytime soon, more out of a personal incapability to talk about the more difficult-to-navigate aspects of her life than anything, but the thought that the option was there, the thought alone that someone understood how hard it could be to be the living breathing support system for the kind of person that put their life on the line on a regular basis, that was comforting.

“It’s obviously not a requirement,” Pepper insisted. “I just-- Wanted to put it out there. So you could think about it.”

“Thank you.”

Michelle would be thinking about it alright.

***

Peter had forgotten.

He had _forgotten_ that he was supposed to be having dinner with Michelle and no part of him wasn’t struck by guilt at the thought of it as he swung home as quickly as he could with a bag of Thai takeout in one hand.

Because as much as Peter knew he was a little bit scatterbrained sometimes, and as much as he knew he had a tendency for tardiness, he very rarely _forgot_ about plans that he had made-- at least, not when it came to plans with Michelle.

They had only been together for a few months (although _only_ was a strong word when considering it was still the longest and most stable relationship of his young life) but already Peter was scared that he was going to ruin it.

His grades had already fallen to the wayside during his stint as some sort of self-imposed rebuild czar, but he really didn’t want that to leach into this relationship as well. He had waited so long for the timing to be right, for his head to be on straight enough, for himself to accept and recognize that his life was always going to be crazy and the timing would _never_ be right and his head would _never_ be screwed on straight.

But they had finally made it past the starting line, and Peter really didn’t want to backtrack.

Michelle had yet to arrive when Peter climbed through the window of his and Ned’s shared apartment (Ned wasn’t there, which meant _Ned_ had remembered Peter was supposed to have dinner with his girlfriend), so Peter had time to very quickly shower off the smells of the city, wrap himself up in a warm sweater and pants and socks, and start to pull out the food by the time she was stepping through the front door.

“I am _so so--”_

“Give me more than my share of spring rolls and I’ll forgive you,” she cut him off with a grin that told Peter she wasn’t nearly as mad as she probably should have been and dropped her bags of camera gear off by the door.

“A high price to pay,” he chuckled, wrapping an arm around her waist as she came up beside him in the kitchen. “But worth it,” he kissed her on the cheek.

She rolled her eyes at him, but she smiled all the while as she shrugged out of her coat and began helping Peter to unpack the food, moving it all over to the coffee table so they could curl up under a few blankets while they ate.

“How’d shooting go today?” Peter asked, tucking his feet up on the couch so as to share as much of her body heat with as much of _his_ body as possible and digging into a carton of food.

The television played on mute, the flickering light of the evening news playing to combat the way they both hated how early the sun set in the winter time and Michelle adjusted how she was sitting so Peter could tuck his toes underneath her thigh.

“Good,” she told him, and he loved the way her eyes got brighter every time she was given the opportunity to talk about the work she was doing-- the work she really cared about, the work that she was kind of genius at. “Watching the Foundation come to be from the ground up is I think going to be really interesting once I cut it all together. I need to get some more stuff on the DODC and how that’s gonna function, and then I have a few more interviews set up for next week with personal testimonials, but I think it’s gonna work. I hope, at least.”

“It’s definitely gonna work,” Peter assured her. “You’re putting in so much work, it’s gonna be amazing.”

He watched her try and hold in a grin as she looked down at her food, not so much because she didn’t believe him as because she was still getting used to the growing confidence in Peter’s compliments of her-- the growing certainty in that he was allowed to notice the beauty in every part of her and thus was allowed to speak it into the world as well.

“Yeah, alright,” she brushed him off. “Tell me about the lab. You and the Doc getting any closer?”

Peter slumped at that, releasing a heavy sigh.

“We lost another mouse today,” he told her dejectedly. “Daisy.”

Michelle frowned sympathetically, but also with a little bit of distaste in her eyes.

“You gotta stop naming the mice, Pete,” she said, taking a bite of rice.

“If we’re gonna use their existence to learn about this stuff then they deserve names!” Peter replied, tired and indignant but lacking any note of genuine offense. “Maya agrees with me.”

“Maya has been working on this same theory for almost fifteen years,” Michelle pointed out. “She’s earned a few eccentricities.”

“And I haven’t?” Peter laughed, digging into his food and not noticing as Michelle’s eyes got drawn away from him and towards the television. “Radioactive spider powers haven’t earned me a little leeway there? I can make my own spider webs, but I can’t name the mice that I do tests on in the very regular lab where I work? I can… MJ?”

He looked up, finally noticing her preoccupation.

“Are you--”

“Wait, sorry, just--” Michelle cut him off as she reached for the remote, frowning at the television. “What is this?” she questioned to herself as she unmuted it and turned up the volume a few notches.

_“... Thirty-nine hours ago, the Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait was attacked… I did that.”_

It wasn’t their usual news programming, was what Peter knew for sure.

“Did this guy just admit to bombing civilians?”

“I… I think he just _took over national broadcasting_ to tell us he bombed civilians,” Michelle gaped at the man on screen. Peter looked at her, looked back at the TV, sat up straighter on the couch.

_“... A quaint military church filled with wives and children of course--”_

“What the fuck…” Peter grew tense as he watched while Michelle scrambled to grab her phone and begin recording the screen.

_“... President Ellis, you continue to resist my attempts to educate you, Sir. And now you’ve missed me again.”_

Michelle just watched intently, phone camera pointed at the TV and sitting on the edge of her seat.

_“You know who I am. You don’t know_ where _I am. And you’ll never see me coming.”_

The image on the screen glitched out, color bars appeared and the tone that accompanied it squealed through their television’s speakers before their original news channel seemed to get ahold of the situation once more and a broadcaster appeared before Peter and Michelle, both a little bit speechless and a little bit terrified to talk over what was happening in case they could get any answers.

_“... back, let’s recap some of the terrifying developments that have just occurred. It appears as though American airwaves were hijacked…”_

They were calling him the Mandarin, or maybe he had called _himself_ the Mandarin and that’s where the name had come from, but either way it was all anyone was talking about as Michelle clicked through various channels in search of anything more than the general stunned confusion going around.

Peter, on the other side of the couch but feeling terribly far away nonetheless, couldn’t take his eyes off of it. They kept playing footage of that explosion, the one that had killed all those innocent people, and even without audio Peter could hear it, could feel the aftershocks of it right there in his living room.

“I don’t understand,” he said out loud. “We just-- we _just_ survived…” he cut himself off with a press of his lips together and a clench of his jaw.

Michelle looked away from the television, gently moved her body closer to his on the couch, and studiously watched their hands as she took his in her own. She didn’t say anything, which Peter was grateful for, because there was very little that could be said in that moment that wouldn’t have just made him angry.

Angry at the world, angry at himself, angry that no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t save everyone.

Michelle kept holding his hand.

***

_“Central to my administration’s response to this terrorist event is a newly minted resource. I know him as Colonel James Rhodes. The American people will soon know him as the Iron Patriot.”_

***

“It tested well with focus groups, alright?”

The amount of defensive posturing in Rhodey’s tone just made Tony grimace further.

“ _I am Iron Patriot,”_ he responded in a mocking voice. “Dude, it sucks--”

“Listen,” Rhodey leaned his forearms on the table. “War Machine was just-- too aggressive--”

“Wasn’t that kinda the point of War Machine?”

“This sends a better message,” Rhodey shrugged.

“You know, even the kid thinks it’s lame?” Tony poked the bear, leaning back in his chair and cocking his head to the side in a way that was both challenging and relaxed and made Rhodey shoot him that very specific look of his.

“I thought you hadn’t talked to the kid recently,” he pushed back. “Twenty minutes ago you’re telling me you haven’t talked to the kid recently-- you can’t use the youth vote if you aren’t in contact with the youth.”

“Alright, so I’m dodging his calls--”

“He says that he’s the one dodging _your_ calls,” Rhodey cut him off with a knowing smirk.

“So maybe we’re dodging each other’s calls,” Tony effortlessly pivoted. “Doesn’t matter, why’s it matter so much?”

“You’re the one that brought up Peter, man,” Rhodey shook his head.

“Only because I know if I wasn’t dodging his calls he would’ve said that the Iron Patriot is lame,” Tony deadpanned. “Because it is.”

Rhodey sighed with apparent exasperation. The bar, which was connected to a restaurant, that they’d taken up residence in for the past half hour was crowded enough that no one really paid attention to them and they could eat their mozzarella sticks in peace, but it was also loud enough to put Tony on edge.

Noise was doing that to him lately, which was probably part of the reason he was spending so much time alone in his lab and not talking to anybody, not that he planned on admitting that any time soon.

“Is this still about the fact that he doesn’t wanna work at SI?” Rhodey asked. “Or have you done something else to piss the protege off?”

Tony laughed sharply. “I think it’s the fact that people keep calling him my fucking protege. Y’know-- among other things.”

“Other things,” Rhodey repeated flatly.

“I dragged him into a fight without giving him all the details,” Tony continued, just spilling out all the thoughts that he’d been stewing in for months. “I put him in serious danger, and then when we all thought I was gonna die in space I very casually tried to guilt him into looking after my company and maybe also did some other not-cool stuff so, yeah, he’s a little mad about it.”

“Tony--”

“Are you gonna tell me what’s really up with this whole Mandarin situation?” Tony renavigated the conversation and took a sharp bite out of a mozzarella stick, and although he could see how tired Rhodey was of going along with one-eighties like this, the man just levelled Tony with a look before answering his question.

“It’s classified information,” he said lowly, glancing around at their surroundings as if anyone was listening.

Tony rolled his eyes with a snort because he knew they weren’t. It was one of the perks of a crowded New York bar, no one really paid attention to anyone else-- not even Iron Man and War Patriot and their stupid basket of fried cheese.

“Okay, okay,” Rhodey sighed, relenting. “There have been nine bombings.”

“Nine?” Tony furrowed his brow. “We only--”

“The public only knows about three, yeah,” Rhodey finished the thought. “But here’s the thing-- Nobody can ID a device.”

Tony’s gaze fell to the surface of the table, focusing on listening rather than reacting.

“There’s no bomb casings,” Rhodey continued. “We have no leads--”

“You know I can help, right?” Tony cut him off. “Just ask. I mean, I’ve got a ton of new tech-- I’ve got a prehensile suit, I’ve got-- um, I’ve got _bomb disposal,”_ he insisted, rattling off the things that were sitting half finished back in his lab. The things that he knew _would_ work even if they didn’t quite yet.

He threw a few more ideas at Rhodey, one right after the other, all of them very incredibly clever, but he watched as Rhodey’s face just fell in response, a long blink and a deep breath before he cut off Tony’s rambling by asking--

“When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”

Tony balked. He frowned. He found the noise in the room just a touch more grating when paired with the concern of James Rhodes.

“Einstein slept three hours a year--”

“--That’s not--”

“--Look what _he_ did,” Tony shrugged offhandedly.

“People are concerned about you, Tones,” Rhodey levelled him with a look. “Pepper’s concerned, Happy’s concerned, I’m concerned-- Hell, _Peter_ is concerned and since he’s not talking to you about it, he’s talking to _me_ about it. You know I lose a year off my life every time his name shows up on caller ID?”

Tony’s frown turned into something more akin to a scowl as he shook his head.

“Don’t-- Don’t do all that,” he demanded with a broad wave of his hand.

“What am I doing?”

“With the guilt thing-- Don’t do the guilt thing--”

“I’m not trying to be a dick--”

“Excuse me, can you sign my drawing, please?”

Tony and Rhodey both whipped their heads around at the young girl’s voice, a young girl whom neither of them in all their superheroic instincts had failed to notice until she was stood right beside their table with a paper menu in hand and a smile on her face.

“--tator,” Rhodey finished, lamely and far too late to save the innocent girl’s ears.

“I would love to,” Tony answered the girl’s question, taking the offered drawing and crayon from her and putting it down on the table. “There’s nothing I love more than writing my name on things-- Or at least, that’s Steve’s favorite joke to make.”

Rhodey snorted out a laugh, sitting back with his arms crossed to watch this exchange with amusement but offering very little actual support.

The bastard.

The drawing in question was quite an impressive crayon rendition of one of the most horrifying moments of Tony’s tragic life. Iron Man, a nuke on his back, flying straight up into nothingness with no hope of returning home.

He picked up a red crayon as Rhodey continued talking quietly to him.

“Listen, the Pentagon is scared,” he said.

Red crayon, right hand--

“After the Chitauri-- I mean, aliens? Come on.”

\--Red crayon, Chitauri, little girl--

“They need to look strong.”

\--little girl, nuke, red crayon, nuke, red crayon--

“Stopping the Mandarin is a priority, but it’s not--”

\--space, red crayon, stars, red crayon, _boom--_

“It’s not superhero business, quite frankly.”

\--boom, red crayon, falling, right hand, falling--

“It’s American business, it’s military business.”

\--falling, boom, space, Chitauri, falling, falling, _falling--_

Snap.

The crayon cracked in two as he finished off his signature with just a touch too much force and the noise in that place-- since when were restaurants so fucking noisy? Since when-- since when was there this buzzing sound coming out of the speakers? Since when, since when, since when--

“Tony?” Rhodey’s voice broke through. “Are you okay?”

Tony let out a sharp exhale, not looking up, not looking at any of them, still looking at that stupid--

“I broke the crayon,” he said. Was he the one saying that? Where was all that _buzzing_ coming from?

“Are you okay, Mister Stark?”

Now that was the little girl, although it threw him back in time a little bit to the other time that he felt like he was dying. _We can fix it, Mister Stark. I really think we can._

Okay, he actually _had_ been dying that time, but also probably this time, the way his heart was racing in his chest.

“Hey,” Rhodey again, quieter this time, farther away. “Just take it easy.”

If asked later how Tony got out of that restaurant and into his suit parked on the curb, he wouldn’t be able to answer. He would act like it was because he didn’t want to talk about it, he would deflect in that expert way that only Tony Stark could really manage, but it would all be a lie because the fact of the matter was that it was a blur.

It was fuzzy around the edges as he begged Jarvis to explain what was happening to him, and it was dark in the center as his faithful AI told him that he had not experienced a heart attack, or a case of being poisoned, but instead a severe anxiety attack.

If the hit to his ego wasn’t enough to send him jetting away before Rhodey could so much as get a word out, then the intense and sudden exhaustion that was coming over him was.

Anxiety attack? That really didn’t sound like him.

Tony flew back to the Tower.


	2. Biotech or Bust

_“_ _I’m just going about my day, scrolling through Twitter while I eat lunch, and then I see-- Oh, Tony’s trending, I wonder why--”_

“Kid,” Rhodey sighed. He was trying to walk back to his hotel in peace, but Peter Parker had his phone number so that was sort of a pipe dream these days.

_“Is he okay? Was it his heart?”_ Peter asked frantically. _“If it’s something with his heart then you should’ve called me. I know the arc reactor inside and out, I--”_

“He’s fine, his heart is fine,” Rhodey cut him off, keeping his voice steady so as to encourage steadiness in the young man who carried more frenetic energy than the whole of his extended family trying to cook Christmas dinner.

_“If he’s fine then why did he collapse on the street?”_

“I don’t know, because I haven’t talked to him about it yet,” Rhodey responded, pausing at a crosswalk. “So, maybe you could ask _him_ , huh? Get it right from the source.”

_“Whatever,”_ Peter said flatly.

“You know,” Rhodey prodded. “He claims that he’s the one dodging _your_ calls.”

_“I’m dodging_ his _calls!”_ Peter predictably fired back.

“Because of the SI job?” he asked, not because he particularly cared, but because they were both being idiots and he wanted them to figure their shit out.

Also, sue him, but Rhodey liked a bit of gossip.

_“I mean sure, but not really,”_ Peter was exasperated, but so were they all in recent months. _“He knows why I’m mad.”_

“Why are you mad?”

_“Because he’s an ass.”_

“Tony thinks it’s because of the SI job.”

_“Tony’s an idiot.”_

Rhodey snorted. “Well, that we can agree on.”

***

Standing by the elevator, Michelle heard him coming long before she saw him.

She heard him in the scattering of SI employees, in the murmur of vague annoyance, and most of all she heard him in his repeated appeal to everyone in the lobby.

“Badge,” Happy said. “Badge-- Come on, I put a memo in the bathroom, guys!”

Michelle snorted, heaving one of the bags of gear strapped to her body higher up on her shoulder.

“Not you too,” Happy sighed with sharp exasperation as he came to stand beside her. “This isn’t that difficult of a request to fill, you know?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Michelle said, flat and faux-innocent.

“Pepper says you’re allowed in here, sure, fine, she’s the boss,” Happy ranted. “But you gotta follow protocol-- ID badges need to be visible at all times--”

“Did you really suggest replacing the janitorial staff with robots?” she cut him off, watching him flounder quietly for a beat as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open.

She stepped inside and a sputtering Happy followed close behind.

“Who told you that?”

“Pepper told me that,” she said as she pressed the button that would take her to the woman in question’s office.

“She really should not be sharing private security conversations with you,” he grumbled and Michelle smirked at him.

“Dude, I’m not here to topple your little empire,” she chuckled.

“Then why aren’t you wearing your badge?” he challenged. The elevator kept rising.

“Because you’re a very high strung man,” she deadpanned. “And watching you freak out over me, a person you know fairly well at this point, is one of the more amusing parts of my day.”

The elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and once again Michelle stepped forward with a sputtering Happy at her heels.

“You-- I’m not-- That’s incredibly--”

“Hey, Miss Potts!” Michelle cut off his half-formed rant by waving at where Pepper was talking to her secretary.

“Pepper,” Happy spoke up as Pepper turned her head to look at them. “Are you talking to a journalist about private conversations we’re having?”

“I’m not a journalist--”

“Because as the head of security, I have to object--”

“I’m a documentary filmmaker,” Michelle continued.

Pepper looked between them as they sparred back and forth, amusement in her eyes as she said, “Happy, what’s the problem? Are you being rude to our guest?”

Michelle and Happy shared a look, in which Michelle let some smugness find its way onto her face and Happy very quickly relented.

“No,” he groused.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” Pepper’s secretary, a woman named Gina that Michelle had had a number of very thoughtful discussions with during her accumulated time in the waiting area outside Pepper’s office, spoke up. “Your four o’clock is here.”

“Did you run this four o’clock by me?” Happy asked.

“Thank you, Gina,” Pepper said, ignoring Happy and moving down the hall towards her office. “I’m sorry Michelle but you’ll have to wait a few minutes,” she said as they followed her. “I have to deal with this-- very annoying thing.”

“Annoying how so?” Michelle asked, always a little delighted when she got to see Pepper’s guard come down a little, watch her complain about daily idiocies like the rest of them.

“Annoying like we used to work together at A.I.M. and he used to ask me out all the time,” Pepper frowned and Michelle grimaced.

“Yikes,” she said.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Happy agreed as the three of them came to a halt outside the door to Pepper’s office.

“Wait, A.I.M? AIM?” Michelle furrowed her brow. “That’s where Peter’s working.”

“Really?” Pepper looked surprised.

“Well, like a tiny off-shoot lab of some sort,” Michelle corrected herself. “I don’t fully know all the politics of it, just that he cares a lot about the research he’s doing.”

“Maybe _that’s_ why he and Tony are-- y’know,” Happy made a face and both the women shot him a look that was dangerously close to an eye roll.

“I’m not sure even Tony and Peter are sure why they’re-- _y’know,”_ Pepper mocked. “But I do have to deal with this, so I’ll talk to you both later, alright? Alright. Great.”

And then she was slipping into her office and closing the door in their faces gently.

“You stressed her out,” Michelle accused.

Happy whipped his head around to look at her indignantly.

“What? I-- Maybe you’re the one that stressed her-- She wasn’t _stressed--_ You know what? Whatever. I have better things--” he shook his head and started walking away. “Put your badge on!”

Michelle laughed quietly to herself as she watched him go.

Happy Hogan was her favorite SI employee by a mile.

***

After the Chitauri invaded, May suggested to Peter that perhaps he should take a break.

She left the parameters for what constituted a break pretty broad for him, presumably out of the hope that he would choose _any_ parameters rather than the none that he ended up going for. See, Peter Parker didn’t really do time off, and Spider-Man certainly didn’t either, so when the summer came to an end and it was time to sign up for the first semester of his senior year at ESU, he kept going as though everything was normal.

Full course load, new internship that he really couldn’t turn down (regenerative healing! It was the kind of work that would help cure degenerative illnesses!), and a city to rebuild, Peter just kept going.

Of course now, late December and nearing the end of the semester, Peter had needed to withdraw from a couple of classes and was almost certainly going to end up with a D in a another that he would have to retake, meaning his four-year degree was turning into a four-and-a-half-maybe-five-year degree.

But at least he still had his internship, even if their research _was_ hitting a number of stumbling blocks in recent weeks.

“You have yesterday’s data ready for me?”

“Yeah, Doc,” Peter nodded, opening up the nearest file cabinet and flipping through for what he was looking for. “And today’s paper’s on the counter if you wanna look at it.”

“Oh, yes, thank you,” Maya rolled from one desk to the other to grab the paper.

Doctor Maya Hansen was a brilliant woman-- a woman who, given the right resources, Peter believed could change the world.

Her ideas were groundbreaking, had been for the past decade or so that she’d been working on them, but even still she worked out of a tiny lab, underfunded and underestimated by the world of science at large.

Not by Peter though. He’d seen what she did during her early plant trials, and just because those results weren’t crossing over into the mammal tests they were doing on mice with various cancers and missing limbs yet didn’t mean they wouldn’t eventually.

“When will the day come when the Avengers are no longer page one news?” Maya complained, flipping the front of the paper around to show Peter.

He laughed. “I dunno. When people get used to the idea of aliens?”

“I think we’re pretty well used to it,” Maya pointed out. “At least, New York is.”

“Yeah, fair,” Peter shrugged. “Guess it’s just still selling papers.”

“You know what’s a shame is that none of those guys have any interest in science,” she chuckled, a little sardonically.

Peter snorted. “I think Bruce Banner’s whole thing is that he’s a scientist,” he said without looking up from his notes.

“You know what I mean,” Maya brushed him off. “They do the kind of science that attacks threats-- not this stuff, not the kind of stuff that _heals.”_

Peter wanted to tell her that that wasn’t true, that she was wrong and that of course the Avengers were interested in healing the world as much as attacking the threats that wronged it, but it was a complicated thing to explain. Especially without letting on just how much he knew about the work that, for instance, Steve and Natasha were doing for Shield, or what Bruce worked on in the lab, or, you know, his identity.

“I mean, think about it,” Maya rolled backwards in her chair, slouching back as she motioned to the monitors on her desk. “Think about what Extremis could be if we had _one_ DNA sample from Steve Rogers or-- or _Spider-Man--_ ”

A sharp pain, at the back of Peter’s neck.

“-- The amount that we could learn about regenerative health,” she shook her head. “The amount of people that could help, Peter.”

“I mean,” his heart was racing despite the general hypothetical nature of the conversation, and he chalked it down to the fact that he was always a little bit nervous to talk about Spider-Man as Peter Parker, always nervous that his big, stupid mouth was going to let just a little too much slip. “Those guys are pretty private about their enhancements. How do you even know they have any sort of healing factor?”

“Come on,” Maya shot him a look. “You think a guy that swings at speeds as fast as the average car, a guy that can catch a _moving bus_ with his bare hands-- you think that guy doesn’t have a little super healing backing that up?”

“Could just be super strength,” Peter shrugged. “Or he’s just-- very, very brave.”

Maya laughed. “I forgot you were a Queens boy,” she said. “Should I stop picking on your guy?”

“You’re not picking on him,” Peter collated his papers with a shrug, tapping them against the desk one or two or three too many times.

“Wait,” she spun around in her chair to face him head-on. “You still work at the Bugle right?”

“Uh-- Part time, but yeah,” Peter averted his gaze awkwardly and hoped she read it as _I’m embarrassed that I work there_ and not as _stop looking so closely at my connection to Spider-Man._

“That’s right, you take all those pictures of Spidey,” she pointed at him, all _eureka_ moment and intrigue.

“I mean, not _all_ of them--”

“But a ton of them,” she cut him off. “Have you ever actually met the guy? Like, while you were getting your shots?”

Peter began shuffling things around, moving between desks and pretending to look productive when he was, in fact, just putting all of his energy into being a good liar.

But he’d never had much luck with that before.

“I mean,” he laughed uncomfortably. “He’s-- I dunno, Doc--”

“You totally have,” she grinned, getting up from her chair and following him across the room, keeping their conversation moving like a cat-and-mouse chase. “What’s he like? Do you think he’d be into this kind of stuff?”

“He’s-- Mostly he’s just private,” Peter gave her a sheepish look over his shoulder. “Y’know, secret identity and all.”

“Sure, of course,” Maya leaned against the table where he’d stopped, sorting through hardcopy files so he wouldn’t have to meet her gaze. “But his whole thing is helping people, yeah? I mean-- Peter, you _know_ that Extremis is floundering right? We’re floundering here.”

The quiet desperation of it made some of the tension cut from Peter’s shoulders, made him release a breath of air too thick for his lungs.

“I know,” he responded simply, because he did.

“And you also know that a little bit of insight into how a healing factor like that works could--” she shook her head. “It could turn it all around for us?”

Peter sighed. “The guy’s not just gonna hand over a DNA sample,” he said. “He has no reason to trust us with it, he has no reason to believe it’s not gonna be used in some way he doesn’t agree with--”

“So explain what we’re doing to him,” she implored, and Peter had known her long enough at this point to know she just needed a bit of reassurance before she could get on with her day.

As many years as she had put into this thing, sometimes she just needed a little bit of reassurance.

So Peter said, “Yeah, alright. I’ll-- I mean, I can’t track him down but if I see him I’ll-- you know, see what I can do.”

Maya softened, a breath of a thing that someone who didn’t spend as much time around her as Peter did probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now,” she clapped her hands together. “Yesterday’s data?”

***

Tony decided that he hadn’t had an anxiety attack.

It wasn’t often that Jarvis was wrong, but this time, in this scenario, Jarvis was wrong, so Tony ignored the whole incident and got back to work.

That prehensile suit wasn’t going to make itself work after all.

He was rummaging around in his lab, bolting back and forth between this project and that one and the other thing that still needed about a dozen and a half more trials before it was even remotely viable, when he was interrupted by an incoming call.

“What’re you doing calling me?” Tony said as he had Jarvis put the call through. “Don’t you have a so-called real job now?”

_“I do, in fact, actually,”_ Happy responded. _“Which is why I only have a few minutes.”_

“Why? Busy harassing Pepper’s staff?” Tony teased. “Don’t think I haven’t heard about the badges.”

_“Complaining about how seriously I take protecting the people in this building is what’s wrong with this country.”_

“Oh, that’s what’s wrong?” Tony snorted. “I’ll let Rhodey know. He’s got the ear of the president, after all.”

_“You’re derailing the conversation, this isn’t why I called,”_ Happy groused.

“Doesn’t sound like me,” Tony strode across the room, still multitasking as he talked. “I mean, you’re the one that left me in the dust.”

_“You know, people made fun of me when I told ‘em I was Iron Man’s bodyguard?”_ Happy fired back. _“I had to get out while I still had a shred of dignity.”_

“And now you’re doing a real job.”

_“Yeah, I’m looking out for Pepper,”_ Happy sounded genuinely good on the other end of the line-- proud even, with this progression of this career.

Tony was proud too, but that wasn’t going to keep him from poking fun at the guy whenever the chance presented itself.

“How’s it going?” Tony asked. “Is that why you called? Is it bad?”

_“She’s got a meeting with this guy right now,”_ Happy told him, ignoring the quippy part of Tony’s question. _“She mentioned he’s a pain so I looked him up, ran his credentials--”_

“Doing your due diligence.”

_“For sure,”_ Happy agreed and Tony smiled to himself. _“You remember the name Aldrich Killian? We actually met the guy at-- Um, where were in ‘99? For that science conference?”_

“Um,” Tony furrowed his brow, properly had to think about it for a moment before, “Switzerland.”

_“Right. Exactly.”_

“Who is he?” Tony asked. “I don’t remember a Killian.”

_“Well of course you don’t,”_ Happy scoffed. _“You were too busy checking out what’s-her-name’s plants.”_

“Sure.”

_“But that’s not the heart of the thing,”_ Happy continued. _“The guy owns AIM.”_

The way he said it made it sound important, but Tony could not for the life of him find any sort of important link to such a thing in his big, smart brain.

“Okay?” he questioned leadingly, looking for Happy to spell it out for him.

_“Well, Michelle was just here--”_

“Jones?” Tony’s eyebrows lifted as he sat back in a nearby chair, letting himself get comfortable and just focus on the conversation in front of him rather than the seventeen things on the backburner.

_“How many Michelle’s do you know?”_

“Well, statistically, probably more than the one,” Tony said flatly.

_“Yes, Jones,”_ Happy replied with exasperation. _“And she said that that’s where the kid’s been working this semester.”_

“This AIM place?” Tony tapped on his phone a few times, pulled up a few links on _Advanced Idea Mechanics_ and began to scroll.

It didn’t look like much-- well, not compared to what Tony and Pepper had built, but it seemed as though the bulk of it was run by Killian, and then it branched off into a few smaller research labs around the country. One of which was in the heart of their very own New York City.

“He working in a research lab?” Tony asked.

_“Wh-- Are you already looking it up?”_ Happy bemoaned.

“Is Pepper not keeping you on your toes enough over there? Not keeping you sharp?” Tony teased. “Yes, I’m already looking it up.”

_“Pepper is, quite frankly, a much better boss than you if that’s what you’re asking.”_

“I wasn’t, but thank you,” Tony told him. “Why’s she talking to Killian though? Are we absorbing them, because that would be-- y’know hilarious and terrible.”

_“How so?”_

“After the fit Pete put up against working for SI?” Tony chuckled. “Only for him to be dragged into working for SI by his fucking hair?”

_“Alright--”_

“Did Jones have any other news?” Tony cut Happy off before he could even form an opinion on that.

A beat, and then a relatively agitated, _“Tony…”_

“What?” Tony shot back faux-innocently.

_“Would you please just talk to him?”_ Happy pressed. _“Would you do us all that favor?”_

“Listen, great talking to you, thanks for the update,” Tony deflected. “But I gotta get going--”

_“Tony--”_

“You know how it is, very busy--”

_“There’s something up with this AIM guy, I’m serious--”_

“Shifty guy, meeting with Pepper, got it,” Tony brushed him off.

_“You joke, but I’m gonna keep looking into it,”_ Happy said.

“Definitely do that,” Tony said. “Considering it’s your job.”

_“Whatever--”_

“Miss you, Happy, bye!”

Tony hung up.

***

“She wants your _DNA?”_

Peter huffed out a breath and rolled his eyes, handing Ned a beer as he sat down on the other end of the couch with his own.

“She wants Spider-Man’s DNA,” he corrected.

“Yes, yours,” Ned deadpanned.

“It’s really not that far off of a theory, y’know?” Peter defended with a small shrug of his shoulders even as he watched Ned continue to gape at him. “That Spider-Man’s healing factor would have some sort of component that could be used in furthering this sort of biotech?”

“Okay, first of all,” Ned pointed the neck of his bottle at Peter accusingly. “Stop talking about Spider-Man like he’s some other guy.”

“What?” Peter frowned, making a face as he took a swig.

“Yeah,” Ned nodded. “It’s making me concerned for your-- mental state.”

“My mental state is fine,” Peter said. “Nothing’s wrong with my mental state.”

“Still up for debate, but second of all,” Ned continued, not to be derailed. “How long have you been at this place? A couple of months? And you’re gonna hand over the DNA sample that literally the entire scientific community has spent _years_ speculating over? You’re just gonna-- do that?”

“Well, I haven’t _decided_ yet,” Peter groused.

“But you’re thinking about it!” Ned exclaimed with blatant disbelief. “Dude. Dude, this is insane.”

“It’s not,” he shook his head. “It’s-- I mean, Maya is crazy smart, and she’s got good intentions, and this actually has the potential to help a ton of people!”

“Have you talked to MJ about this yet?”

Peter sighed. “Ned.”

“I’ll take _that_ as a no,” he snorted. “You know why you haven’t, right? Because she would agree with me. She would agree with me that this is a reckless decision and a major unnecessary overcorrection.”

“I’m not being reckless,” Peter replied defensively. “I’m talking to you about it, aren’t I?”

“Still,” Ned pressed onwards in making his point. “Just because you trust Maya doesn’t mean having your DNA stored somewhere-- _anywhere--_ isn’t potentially super disastrous. I mean, someone studies that shit and figures out your kryptonite? You’re screwed!”

Peter made a face. “I don’t have a kryptonite.”

“That we _know_ of!” Ned exclaimed indignantly. “Doesn’t mean some bad guys couldn’t figure one out with a little bit of evil science.”

“Okay, so one of us is getting accused of being crazy,” Peter deadpanned. “And the other is talking about evil mad scientists.”

“You literally got kidnapped and blackmailed by Justin Hammer,” Ned replied, equally flat in tone and expression.

That was fair enough, but Peter was feeling particularly obstinate on this day, and thus just rolled his eyes at the dramatics of it all.

“I’ll think about it a bit harder, okay?” he said. “Happy?”

“Not even remotely,” Ned said. “But I never really am when you throw yourself into shit shows like this.”

Peter mockingly lifted a hand to his heart.

“Your faith in me is almost _too_ kind.”

***

“Imagine if you could hack into the hard drive of any living organism,” Killian was telling her. This meeting was truly going on longer than she had ever wanted and her stomach was turning enough that she was hoping to get him out of there as quickly as possible. “And recode its DNA.”

“That would be incredible,” Pepper said, knowing her tone implied the fact that it would also be largely improbable. “Unfortunately to my ears, it also sounds highly weaponizable-- Enhanced soldiers, private armies. And Tony is--”

“Tony,” Killian nodded, perhaps a little patronizing in the tilt of his head. “You know, I invited Tony to join AIM-- years ago. He turned me down, of course, but something tells me there’s a new genius on the throne who doesn’t have to answer to Tony anymore and who has slightly less of an ego.”

Okay. So, slightly more than a little patronizing if he assumed a bit of empty flattery could sway her own moral standing.

Pepper pursed her lips together ever so slightly before responding, “It’s gonna be a no Aldrich.”

The smile on his face in reply was self-deprecating but inauthentic.

Pepper’s stomach lurched in a familiar way that she knew was more of a tangible problem than simply being put off by the moderately skeevy guy in her office. She stood up as a signal that this meeting was over, and after looking up at her imploringly, Killian finally relented and joined her on his feet.

“I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” he said as she led him to the door. “But as my father used to say, _failure is the fog through which we glimpse triumph.”_

She could have gagged on that even if she wasn’t right on the verge of puking on his shoes as saliva flooded her mouth. She swallowed thickly, smiling sympathetically at him in hopes of covering it up and opening the door for him.

“That’s very deep,” she said, relishing a little bit in the chance to be the patronizing one. “Thanks for coming in.”

“Of course,” he said as he made his exit. “Always a delight to see you, Pepper.”

The minute that she had the door closed behind him, Pepper was across the room with her head in a (blessedly lined) trash can, expelling her lunch in a painful bout against her stomach.

It went on for longer than she would have liked, and she ended up sitting on the floor with her back up against one of the flat sides of her desk, little trash can clutched in her lap as she breathed deeply through her nose and willed the nausea to pass.

A handful of minutes passed like that before there was a quick knock at her door, forcing her to watch it crack open before she could even respond.

“Happy…” she sighed out in complaint as the man in question took in the scene before him, slipped inside, and shut the door behind him in quick succession.

“Boss? You okay?” he asked with genuine concern. “Did someone-- what happened?”

“Nothing dastardly, don’t worry,” she assured him. “Just-- A bit of a bug, it would seem.”

“Well, I was just coming to tell you I’ve got the car downstairs whenever you’re ready, but if you’d rather go home?” he motioned over his shoulder towards the door.

“Is Michelle still waiting?”

“She had to get to class,” Happy said. “You’re free and clear to go upstairs and be sick in peace.”

“Thank God,” Pepper sighed, letting her head fall back against the desk. “Hand me that water bottle would you?”

Happy quickly complied, crouching down in front of her to hand her the water and only grimacing a little bit when she swished a mouthful around her teeth and spat into the already sullied bin.

“Ready?” he asked, a little green around the gills.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “Let’s go.”

***

The penthouse of Stark Tower-turned-Avengers Tower had been repurposed during the post-invasion remodel, making it more of a common space for the Avengers that was separate from the rest of SI and everything else that operated out of the Tower and its overwhelming amounts of space. It wasn’t currently in use, however, due to all of the Avengers being busy either with dealings outside of the city or with being personally pissed off with Pepper’s partner.

Still, even without using the common space, Pepper and Tony still had a spacious, sprawling apartment of their own to go home to each night.

Pepper slipped out of her shoes in the elevator, already feeling significantly better than before she’d thrown up but grateful for the excuse to cut her day short nonetheless as she stepped out the doors and into their apartment.

Her feet felt twice their normal size and her whole body was rebelling against her and as much as she wanted to ignore it until her life was in a place where ignoring it was less all-around daunting, it was getting harder and harder with each and every day.

Although, the fully armor-clad boyfriend on her couch was a pretty good distraction.

***

She was carrying her shoes in her hand and although she looked beautiful (because she always looked beautiful) Tony couldn’t help but notice that she also looked exhausted. He supposed if what Happy said was true and she was sick, then that would make sense.

“What’s this, then?” she dropped her shoes on the rug as she sat down in the chair adjacent to his. “Mark fifteen? And you’re wearing it in the house?”

“Yeah,” Tony lied, mentally apologizing to the actual Mark 15 from approximately thirty marks ago. “Something like that. You know everybody needs a hobby.”

“And you have to wear your hobby in the living room?” she teased as she rolled her ankles in repetitive circles, one and then the other as if to regain circulation.

“Just breaking it in,” Tony said before flipping the face shield up and beginning to pace the room. “You feeling alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” she replied offhandedly, already flipping through a stack of mail on the side table beside her elbow.

“You sure?” he challenged, coming around behind her and beginning to massage at her shoulders. “You’re awfully tense.”

“Are you sure it’s not the metal gloves that are giving you that impression?” she deadpanned.

“Hm, maybe,” Tony stepped back as Pepper stood up, letting her take his hand and lead him down the set of steps that lead to his lab. “What’s happening now?”

“You’re going to take the suit off,” she told him. “And we’re going to have dinner like normal, non-robotic people.”

“Oh, are we?” Tony smirked, even as he stepped into the lab and had Jarvis open up the suit so he could step out. “And what should we have for dinner, Miss Potts. Soup? Ginger ale? Something easy on the stomach.”

Pepper’s face immediately fell from its flirty, teasing countenance into something more like annoyance.

“Happy’s a snitch, huh?”

“Happy was concerned,” Tony defended, leaning against a workbench and watching her cross her arms over her chest. “You never get sick.”

“Well, then maybe I was due,” she said. “But I really am fine now, it was just something I ate probably.”

“Something you ate?” Tony lifted an eyebrow. “Or perhaps a negative reaction to having one Aldrich Killian in your office?”

Pepper rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious,” Tony insisted. “His weird, backwards business practices probably leave behind a pukey sort of aura.”

“I did not throw up because of Aldrich Killian’s _aura,”_ Pepper said, a hint of amusement to her voice. “But I do think I should call Michelle about this guy-- Happy told you that Peter’s been working for him, right?”

“Technically he’s working at some tiny off-shoot lab that funnels into AIM,” Tony corrected her with a shrug that indicated a more casual stance on this fact than he was feeling. He knew Pepper could see it though, because Pepper saw everything.

She had always been better at that than him.

“This stuff that Killian’s working on though,” she shook her head. “It just doesn’t feel like something Peter would be into.”

Tony frowned. “If you’re implying he’s been kidnapped and blackmailed into doing science experiments _again_ I’m gonna have to disagree.”

“Tony…”

“Because that would be genuinely insane,” he continued through her clear exasperation. “That would be a fucking crazy set of circumstances to happen twice.”

“Okay, well I’m gonna go to bed--”

“What?”

“Because I don’t feel like listening to you spiral about this again if you’re going to continue to refuse to do anything about it,” she said, already turning around to leave the lab with a wave of her hand.

But Tony couldn’t have that, couldn’t let his own insecurities wreck her day the same way they’d been wrecking his own (day after day after day), and so he pushed off the table where he was leaning and immediately backpedaled.

“Pep-- Wait, I’m-- I was wrong, okay?” he blurted out. “I’m being annoying. I’m a piping hot mess.”

She turned around and looked at him appraisingly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softer now, trying to show her that he was being earnest about it. “I know you can see it and I know I haven’t been talking about it--”

“You can always talk to me about it,” she cut in as she stepped back closer to him, slower than she had been leaving but at least in the right direction this time.

“I know, I know that,” he blinked long, crossed his arms, looked back at her. “Everything’s been-- different. Since the invasion.”

A soft smile, a quirk of her eyebrow. “Really?” she teased gently. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Tony bobbed his head once in self-deprecating acquiescence, arms crossed as he let himself lean back against the counter once more, let his shoulders cave in around his heart once more.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess-- There are the experiences? And they end, but it’s still-- fucking impossible to explain them.”

“Okay.”

“Gods, aliens, other dimensions,” he continued with a disbelieving shake of his head. “I’m just a man in a can, Pep… Honestly, the only reason I haven’t cracked up is probably because you’re here.”

“But I can only do so much,” she implored. “You’re not sleeping, Tony.”

He scrubbed a tired hand over his tired face, agreed with a quiet, “Yeah.”

“I know you wait until I’ve gone to bed and then come down here and do whatever it is you do,” she motioned to the lab.

“I do what I know _how_ to do,” he admitted.

Pepper took another step closer to him, stood right in front of him now, within touching distance.

“I know that it’s hard--”

“Threat is imminent,” he felt something crack inside of him, something that was spilling out vulnerability against his better judgment, something that was seeping, burning like acid into the very integrity of Pepper Potts. He hated it, he hated himself, he hated how scared he was, but he needed her to understand. “It’ll be here any day, and I have to-- I have to protect the one thing I can’t live without,” he motioned to her with a small wave of his hand, still not touching her.

“Okay,” she breathed, as she lifted her hands to rest first on his shoulders before sliding up to cradle the bottom of his skull. Tony let himself be pulled gently forward, let his forehead rest against her sternum where he could feel the vibrations of her steady voice. “I know that it’s hard, Tony, because if watching it from the outside is this hard it must be unbearable inside of here,” she tapped her fingertips gently against his skull and he placed his hands on her waist in response. “But all this? The not sleeping, the paranoia, the-- the obsessive working? That’s not going to make it any easier.”

Tony pulled his head back, looked up at her and all the concern clear as day in the depth of her eyes.

“I can’t stop,” he told her earnestly.

Pepper nodded, not as though she agreed with that sentiment, but as though she had expected it.

“I’m going to need you to try.”

She kissed him on the forehead before stepping out of his embrace and walking towards the door once more, leaving him with a lingering look.

Tony slumped where he stood and watched her leave. He wanted to give her everything, wanted to be exactly the person that she desired, to be whatever it was she needed.

But he couldn’t do that if he didn’t know for sure that she was safe. He couldn’t do that when the Avengers were scattered, handling their own threats and lives and people and leaving him to stew in the city, in the streets that he had thought would hold his final breaths just a handful of months ago.

Tony got back to work. She needed him to try, and so he would.

He just had to do this first.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading-- your comments keep me going <3
> 
> as always, feel free to come say hi on [tumblr](https://premiere-pro.tumblr.com)!


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